Taiwan Film Festival: Tropical Fish

Tropical Fish (March 7, 3:30 p.m.): Taiwan's rigorous educational system is given a gentle slap on the wrist in this enjoyable comedy by Chen Yu-hsun. With the Joint Entrance Exam breathing down his neck, young Zhi-qiang (Wen Ying) is still incapable of pulling his head out of the clouds. He's a daydreamer who, in a fantasy sequence out of a Saturday-morning kiddie show, toots around the ocean floor in a yellow submarine. Then he's kidnapped, which is when the real fun begins. His abductors, led by a Ma Barker figure in a floral-print housedress, are the gang who couldn't think straight. Actually, they're a lower-class family, and before you know it they're as concerned as Zhi-qiang's own middle-class family that he get released in time to take his life-determining test. Indeed, the whole country ' lower, middle, upper ' gets swept up in Zhi-qiang's future or lack thereof. When it comes to the Joint Entrance Exam, apparently, class is dismissed.